Lord Jeffrey Takes Manhattan

By Douglas Kendall, Curator of Collections

Many of my posts focus on rarely-seen objects in the Fenimore Art Museum collections. All museums have great objects in storage, but today I’m writing about a desk-and-bookcase in our collection that’s almost always on exhibition, just 3 hours away from our Museum.

Desk-and-Bookcase

Wood, brass.

Made for W. & J. Sloane, New York, NY, 1926.

Museum Purchase, acquired with funds given by Horace Moses., N0003.1994. Photo: Douglas Kendall

It could be a long story, but suffice it to say that our parent organization, the New York State Historical Association, was headquartered in Ticonderoga, New York from 1926 through 1939, in a building commissioned for the purpose by Horace Moses, a paper company executive who had grown up in Ticonderoga. The building was an exact replica of the Thomas Hancock House, which was built in Boston in 1737 but was demolished in 1863 after the failure of an early attempt at historic preservation. Moses furnished the building with reproductions of colonial and Federal period American furniture, acquired from W. & J. Sloane of New York City.

Today, the building is still owned by NYSHA but is operated as a museum and research center by the Ticonderoga Historical Society. Although THS exhibits its own collections, NYSHA still owns many objects in the building, including the Colonial Revival furniture by the Sloane firm. The gem of this collection is a monumental desk-and-bookcase that features a bust of the British general Lord Jeffery Amherst on the pediment. Amherst was a prominent and controversial British general. His forces captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1759 during the French and Indian Wars.

When the Sloane furniture was acquired for Hancock House, it was intended to be used. But now, over 80 years later, the Colonial Revival is a subject of historical study and Colonial Revival furniture is sought after by museums and collectors. This month, the Museum of the City of New York is opening an exhibition called The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis and NYSHA’s desk-and-bookcase is a key element in the show. This week I drove to Ticonderoga to meet the THS curator, Bill Dolback and oversee the packing and shipping of the desk by Chad and Josh of Bonsai Fine Arts. It is no mean feat to dismantle a piece like this and then wrap it safely for the 5-hour drive to Manhattan. We discovered some interesting construction details in the process of packing. For example, the interior cubby holes in the upper section are actually an insert that can be fully removed to allow the top and bottom to be separated.

Lord Jeffery will be on exhibition in New York from June 14 through October 30. After that he will once again be on view at Hancock House in Ticonderoga. In either location, he’s well worth a visit.

A Camera Which Shall Be Wholly Concealed

By Douglas Kendall, Curator of Collections

These days, cameras are everywhere. Wherever there’s a smart phone, there’s a camera. Sales of dedicated cameras are down; the almost-universal acceptance of the camera in a phone has even affected recently chic devices such as the Flip Video camera, which is going out of production.

The only thing really new about this phenomenon of cameras that don’t look like cameras is its ubiquity. There must have been a demand for concealed cameras early in the development of photography. By the 1880s, inventors had created cameras designed to look like hats, satchels, books, binoculars, walking sticks and (my personal favorite) revolvers. Pulling a camera that looks like a gun seems like a sure way to reduce the population of photographers quickly.

Cooperstown’s own Arthur Telfer, whose photographs can be seen via the Fenimore Art Museum’s Collections page, owned a camera designed to be hidden behind the photographer’s vest. The disc-shaped design was patented by Robert D. Gray of New York City in 1886; he soon sold the patent to one C. P. Stirn. The camera was manufactured for and marketed by Stirn & Lyon of New York and was also sold in Germany. The relatively thin disc was held behind a man’s vest; the lens aligned with a buttonhole.

Vest Camera

Nickel-plated brass

Made for Stirn & Lyon, New York, NY, ca. 1888

Gift of Arthur J. Telfer, N0064.1945. Photo: Douglas Kendall

How did the Vest Camera work in practice? The directions made it sound simple: “place it under the coat or vest in such a manner as to show only the lens, which, in the shape of a button, is fastened in a button-hole, thus giving the Camera a firm, steady position. In order to secure a good, clear picture, place your right hand over the vest exactly where the Camera is hidden, point the lens toward the centre of the object to be photographed and, by pulling with your left hand on the string hanging from the lower part of the Camera, you secure the first picture. Now turn the centre screw or button of the Camera with the dart to No. 2, which causes the Dry Plate to change its position and makes it ready for the next picture; continue thus until six pictures are taken and after that change the Plate for a new one in the dark-room and again you are ready for six more pictures."

I have to wonder how long the secretive camera bug would be able to maintain the deception while engaged in all those awkward hand movements. But apparently the idea of the Vest Camera captivated a lot of Americans. The company’s ads claimed that 13,000 had been sold within two years of Gray’s patent. In 19th century terms, it was probably nearly as big a sensation as the Flip was in the 21st century. It’s not clear how long the craze lasted, but specialized accessories were still being introduced in 1889.

“C. P. Stirn’s Patent Concealed Vest Camera”

Advertisement for the C.P. Sterns, Concealed Vest Camera, published in the April issue of Scribners magazine, 1889. Found at: Historic Camera

We don’t know why Arthur Telfer acquired a Concealed Vest Camera, but he kept it until 1945, when he gave it to the New York State Historical Association, parent of the Fenimore Art Museum. A few years later, Telfer gave NYSHA the entire collection of glass-plate negatives taken by him and his predecessor and partner, Washington Smith, beginning in 1853.

A Little Case of Phyfe

By Douglas Kendall, Curator of Collections

Duncan Phyfe, a Scots immigrant to New York at the turn of the 19th century, became one of America’s leading cabinetmakers in the neoclassical style. His furniture can be found today at the White House and in many leading decorative arts museums around the country.


While the Fenimore Art Museum collections don’t focus on high-style furnishings, we do own a partial set of chairs attributed to Phyfe. These Greek Revival chairs were purchased for the townhouse of Catherine DePeyster and James Livingston in New York City. Family history relates that it was originally a set of twelve (the Museum owns 8), along with a sofa, side table, worktable, and chest of drawers, all purchased from Phyfe. The family also owned a home in Cherry Valley, near Cooperstown and were given to the Museum over 40 years ago.

Side Chair Mahogany, cherry, ash, white pine, horsehair, attributed to Duncan Phyfe, New York, 1805-1810

Gift of Ralph E. Lum, Jr., N0028.1965(07). Photo: Andy Stupperich.

While the DePeyster-Livingston chairs are typical of Phyfe’s work, the Museum also owns a more unusual piece that the cabinetmaker had a part in creating. In 1826, the City of New York celebrated the completion of the Erie Canal by presenting silver commemorative medals to dignitaries who had been invited to the opening ceremonies. Charles Cushing Wright, an engraver from Utica who moved to New York City in the 1820s, created the silver medal. Special cases were commissioned from Phyfe and wood turner Daniel Karr by the Common Council to house the medals. The maple used in the boxes came from the Seneca Chief, the boat that made the ceremonial first round trip on the Erie, carrying kegs of Lake Erie water that was dumped into New York Harbor to symbolize “the marriage of the waters.”

Union of the Erie with the Atlantic.

Medal, silver. Charles Cushing Wright (1796-1854), New York, 1826.

Gift of James Fenimore Cooper, II (1858-1938), transferred from Otsego County Historical Society, N0361.1963(01). Photo: Richard Walker.

Box for Erie Canal commemorative medal. Case for medal, birdseye maple, paper.

Duncan Phyfe and Daniel Karr, New York, 1826.

Gift of James Fenimore Cooper, II (1858-1938), transferred from Otsego County Historical Society, N0361.1963(02). Photo: Richard Walker.

James Fenimore Cooper was one of the dignitaries who received a medal from the Common Council of New York City in 1826. His descendants treasured the medal and the beautiful little case made by Phyfe and Karr until it was given to the Otsego County Historical Society by Cooper’s namesake grandson in the 20th century. When the OCHS disbanded in the 1960s, the medal and its box were transferred to the Museum’s parent organization, the New York State Historical Association.

The medal and box may be seen in the Cooper Room during the 2011 season. But beginning in December 2011, it will be travelling back to the city for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition, Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York.

The American Hen

By: Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

One of the advantages of working in the Museum’s storage facility is that almost every day I may see interesting artifacts for the first time—or I should say, really see them for the first time. I may have walked by a certain shelf dozens of times but for some reason on a particular day I had a reason to notice the items stored there.

Recently, I was helping inventory and photograph our collection of dolls with Erin Richardson, the Curator of The Farmers’ Museum. On one of the shelves below the dolls we saw a group of white glass objects—table or dresser accessories but in rather unusual shapes: a cannon, a hen, a battleship and another ship topped with a man’s figure.

The objects were made of milk glass or lattimo, which is “opaque white glass, usually opacified by tin oxide or arsenic” according to the Glass Dictionary of the Corning Museum of Glass.

A closer look reveals that these household objects all commemorate an event I’ve blogged about previously: the United States’ victories in the Spanish-American War. And it turns out the donor was the same man who gave the USS Olympia pitcher noted in that post as well as the “Bathing Beauties” stoneware jug I discussed way back in 2009—Preston Bassett of Ridgefield, Connecticut.

In these six objects one finds encapsulated much of the popular feeling about the brief and successful war against Spain: one is molded in the shape of a battleship with the name Maine on the prow, representing the ship that exploded in Havana harbor and precipitated the conflict. Another battleship is ridden by the figure of Uncle Sam, while a third dish has a battleship-form base but is surmounted by a bust of Admiral Dewey, the commander of the US squadron at the Battle of Manila Bay. There’s also a round dish with a drum-like base and a cannon-shaped lid and a cup covered by an eagle.

USS Maine

Westmoreland Glass or McKee Glass, Grapeville or Jeannette, PA, 1898-1910. Gift of Preston Bassett, N0103.1976

Photo: Douglas Kendall

Uncle Sam Rides With the Navy

Westmoreland Glass or McKee Glass, Grapeville or Jeannette, PA, 1898-1910. Gift of Preston Bassett, N0102.1976

Photo: Douglas Kendall

Cannon on a Drum

Westmoreland Glass or McKee Glass, Grapeville or Jeannette, PA, 1898-1910. Gift of Preston Bassett, N0101.1976

Photo: Douglas Kendall

Perhaps most interesting, though, is another oval dish with a base textured to look like a nest and marked “The American Hen.” The lid of this piece is in the form of a bird (more like an eagle than a hen, if you ask me) with wings outstretched, sitting on three eggs marked “Porto Rico,” “Cuba,” and “Phillipines.” This piece indicates the result of the war: the acquisition (for varying periods of time) of these far-flung parts of the declining Spanish empire and the rise of the United States as an international power.

The American Hen

Westmoreland Glass or McKee Glass, Grapeville or Jeannette, PA, 1898-1910. Gift of Preston Bassett, N0104.1976. 

Photo: Douglas Kendall

These commemorative items were made in western Pennsylvania by either the Westmoreland Glass Company or the McKee Glass Company. Although some have old breaks that have been repaired with an adhesive that left stains, these remain instructive artifacts of the pride many Americans felt in their country’s arrival on the world scene back in 1898.

A Week in the Life of Our Storage Facility

Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

Those of you who follow this blog already know that winter is anything but a slow time in the Museum, even though we are closed to the public. The curatorial staff is busy preparing the 2011 exhibitions for the April 1 opening and getting ready to send the Thaw Collection traveling exhibition to its next venue at the Dallas Museum of Art, among other activities.

One might imagine that the storage facility for Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers’ Museum at least would be peaceful; after all, this is where the vast majority of the artifacts not on exhibition are kept. The very word “storage” suggests a lack of activity.

Exterior, Iroquois Storage Facility, February 2011

The storage facility is located in a former thoroughbred horse stable and from the outside it look relatively unchanged. Perhaps because the storage facility is two miles away from the museum campus, even our staff often thinks this is a quiet backwater.

Nothing could be farther from the truth and this week the building was especially busy.

Because we co-sponsor the Cooperstown Graduate Program in museum studies, students spend a lot of time here examining and writing about objects in the collections. In addition, at least two classes are held at the facility every week during the semester, in a classroom that originally served as the stable’s tack room. Because the graduate program emphasizes hands-on study, we move objects into the classroom for each session. On Tuesday of this week, we set up for Wednesday’s Collections Care class for first-year graduate students. Wednesday morning, conservators C.R. and Sue Jones covered the care of historic photographs and paper objects; after a brief break, I talked about care of ceramics and glass in museum collections.

Ready for Furniture class, February 17, 2011

Caring for Photographs, February 16, 2011

While Assistant Curator of Collections, John Hart, and student assistant Amy Drake switched out those objects for the furniture that would be needed for Thursday’s class, Assistant Professor Will Walker held a session of his American Cultures II seminar in the upstairs collections area Wednesday afternoon. Will’s class examined items in the Museum’s Kopp Collection, which consists of advertising and other popular culture images of Native Americans. Thursday, Associate Professor of Material Culture Cindy Falk and the first-years studied wooden furniture in the classroom.

American Cultures class, February 16, 2011

In addition to all of the academic activity in the building, the storage space in the lower level of the building is also being upgraded. New climate control equipment and better shelving is being installed. So while classes have been meeting upstairs, contractors and the Facilities staff have been busy in the basement. The result will be a much better environment for over 60,000 glass plate negatives stored here (including the Smith & Telfer Photographic Collection) as well as other museum and library collections.

Preparing the basement for new shelving, February 15, 2011

Next week, the graduate students have Winter Break, so it won’t be quite so busy. But I trust you get the idea—museum storage is neither quiet nor boring around here!

Little Love for Woodchucks: the Case of the Naturalist’s Coat

By: Douglas Kendall, Curator of Collections

This morning the thermometer at my office read 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit at 8 AM. It’s hard to remember that we observe Groundhog Day next week in the hopes that Punxsutawney Phil, Wiarton Willy or any number of other competing rodents will usher in an early spring by failing to see their shadows.

Marmota monax standing Photo: April King, used by permission under the GNU Free Documentation License.

A handful of celebrity groundhogs bask in their brief moment in the spotlight (but not the sun, the observers sincerely hope each year), but their species doesn’t generally get a lot of love from humans the rest of the year. Also known as woodchucks, the Marmota monax are found from Alabama to Alaska and are very common here in the Northeastern United States. They will eat grubs, grasshoppers and wild grasses, but in my personal experience they especially love garden vegetables.

John Burroughs at Edison’s House. Photo: Hunt, Fort Myers, Florida, 1914. This image is in the public domain.

The great American naturalist John Burroughs (1837-1921) named one of his homes Woodchuck Lodge, but it apparently wasn’t due to his fondness for the creatures. Rather, when Burroughs built a cabin on land purchased for him in Roxbury, New York by Henry Ford in 1913, he found the land already inhabited by a large population of woodchucks. Though in his 80s when he lived at Woodchuck Lodge, Burroughs was still a crack shot. One visitor wrote in his diary just a year before Burroughs passed away, “before standing for the picture, he called my attention to a fur coat made entirely of woodchuck skins. Mr. B. despite he is 84 years old, is a good marksman and said that last year he killed more than 100 woodchucks and nearly as many this season. He hastened to add that the woodchuck was the only animal he will shoot. He declared them a nuisance about the place." (see here for more on the naturalist’s thoughts on Marmota monax)

Coat. (N0200.1993) Woodchuck-fur, 1913-1920. Museum Purchase. Photo: Douglas Kendall.

Woodchuck-fur coats are not common and the one owned by John Burroughs now resides in the collections of the Fenimore Art Museum. It looks as if it would help keep one warm on cold January mornings. If we take the coat outside next Wednesday and it casts no shadow, I wonder whether spring will come sooner. We can only hope…

History in Glass: the USS Olympia commemorative pitcher

Douglas Kendall, Curator of Collections

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my visit to Philadelphia for the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums annual meeting. Moored near the conference hotel is one of America’s most famous naval vessels, USS Olympia, a National Historic Landmark and Admiral George Dewey’s flagship during the Spanish-American War. At least $10 million is now needed to prevent Olympia from sinking into Philadelphia harbor.

If such a fate seems unfortunate today, it would have been unthinkable in the aftermath of Dewey’s stunning victory at the Battle of Manila Bay. Admiral Dewey, Captain Charles Vernon Gridley and Olympia herself were amongst the best-known heroes of the Spanish American War, which established the United States as a world power.

Americans love to commemorate heroes and manufacturers love to fill the need for commemorative items. We have an Olympia commemorative pitcher in the Fenimore Art Museum collection that was made soon after the Battle of Manila Bay by the Beatty-Brady Glass Company of Dunkirk, Indiana. The pressed glass pitcher is illustrated with a bust of Dewey, the famous words with which he began the battle (“Gridley, you may fire when ready.”), and a list of the ships in Dewey’s fleet.

Pitcher, Bust of Admiral Dewey

Pitcher, front view

Pitcher, list of ships in fleet

Pressed glass, Beatty-Brady Glass Company, Dunkirk, IN, ca. 1898-1900. Gift of Preston Bassett, N0098.1976

Pressed glass technology allowed mass production of elaborately decorated glassware and this pitcher is a fine example of that technique. Around the base of the pitcher, the glassmakers employed a motif of minie balls or artillery shells. An eagle sits atop the United State shield above the Dewey quotation. A marine holds the American flag. Sunbursts and other small decorative elements complete the ornamentation of the pitcher.

You can still buy Olympia commemoratives at the Independence Seaport Museum shop, but none so elaborate as the Beatty-Brady pitcher. One hopes that the commemoratives don’t outlast that which they celebrate.

REMINDER! Here is the list of the candidates for the exhibition voting. The poll appears on the right. Cast your vote!

What Lies Below the Surface, July 21, 2009. Featured Major General Baron von Steuben by Ralph Earl.

Musical Craftsmanship, July 28, 2009. Featured a Melodeon.

A Chair Fit for a Pot, October 20, 2009. Featured a corner chair.

What did you do on your summer vacation?, November 17, 2009. Featured photos of Otsego Lake.

The Campbell Family's Service, November 26, 2009. Featured a powderhorn and swords.

Planes, Trains and...nope, Just a Train, December 15, 2009. Featured a model train engine.

A Statue with a Split Personality, June 10, 2010. Featured a statue titled "The Last of the Mohicans."

Birth of the United States Navy, October 15, 2010. Featured a litho of the Kearsarge and the Constitution.

View of Cold Spring and Mount Taurus, December 2, 2008. Featured a painting of the same name by Thomas Chambers.

Floral Quilts and Children's Folk Portraits, February 24, 2009. Featured Eliza Smith by an unidentified artist.

Eunice Pinney Mourning Pictures, April 23, 2009. Featured mourning pictures by Eunice Pinney.

Early Photography Meets 20th Century Sleuthing, July 9, 2009. Featured an extending box camera.

Kopp Collection, July 14, 2009. Featured advertising materials with images of American Indians.

Philadelphia Story: the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums Meeting

Douglas Kendall, Curator of Collections

Last week I had the opportunity to attend “Revolutionizing Museums,” the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums on the Delaware River waterfront in Philadelphia. MAAM is our regional affiliate of the American Association of Museums. Every fall, museum professionals from New York to the District of Columbia gather to celebrate each others’ successes, brainstorm common challenges, learn new things and take away good ideas that can be adapted and reshaped for use at their own museums.

Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, Washington, D.C., 2010.

I attended several sessions related to museum collections care and access, since those are my areas of responsibility here at the Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers’ Museum. Things That Go Bump in the Night…When Collections Strike Back focused on dealing with artifacts and artwork that are potentially dangerous. Fortunately, we don’t have a fluoroscope—an x-ray shoe-fitting machine of dubious use in getting the right fit that also bathed customers and clerks in radiation—or a large medical collection of “wet specimens” like Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum, but every museum curator needs to be alert to the possibility of folks wanting to donate antique guns and cannonballs that could still be loaded or early plastics and film that can spontaneously combust.

Museum of the Macabre®, Philadelphia, PA, 2008-2010.

Lots of museums are finding new ways of sharing collections online (see highlights of the Fenimore Art Museum’s here). At the conference, we heard about the Museum of the Macabre®, which for now is entirely online. The Museum’s founders spoke about the numerous free software tools available online that allowed them to create a website that showcases their collections, educates the public about “the historical significance of the afterlife,” and allows visitors to add their own comments and content to the site. Many traditional museums with physical locations but small budgets can take advantage of these same web tools to make their collections more accessible to the public.

Photo, 2007 by Jan’s Cat/Felix Gomes,

re-used with permission under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Floating just outside the conference hotel is an illustration of some of the challenges faced by museums today: the USS Olympia. It is a National Historic Landmark, the flagship of Admiral Dewey’s fleet during the Spanish-American War. Decommissioned in 1922 and privatized in 1957, the ship is now part of the Independence Seaport Museum, which has spent $5.5 million on preservation since 1996. Unfortunately, at least $10 million is now needed to prevent Olympia from sinking at its mooring within the next 3 years. This month, the Museum is ending public tours of the ship due to its current condition.

I’ve returned to Cooperstown more aware than ever of the evolving nature of our museums—new virtual museums popping up, hoping to eventually have a bricks-and-mortar site—others struggling with the inherent disadvantages of physically preserving art and heritage for future generations. And now I’m back to trying to both preserve and share our collections from our little village in upstate New York.

If you want to find out more about the meeting, you can visit MAAM’s own blog on the Philadelphia conference.

How did that end up in the museum, anyway?

Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

“What’s New” is one of the recurring themes here on the Museum’s blog. We like to share the stories and images of our recent acquisitions. But how do artifacts and works of art find their way into the Museum’s collections? And why those things and not others?

The New York State Historical Association, which operates the Fenimore Art Museum, has existed for over 110 years and has been collecting for most of that time. As you can imagine, we’ve accumulated a lot of things over those years: almost 25,000 objects and over 100,000 photographs.

These days, the Museum continues to acquire artifacts, but the staff has to think hard before adding something new to the collections. We have limited acquisition funds, but even potential gifts have to be carefully scrutinized for relevance—after all, there are costs associated with cataloging, exhibiting and caring for each object in the Museum’s collection and both our resources and our space is finite.

That’s why the staff and Board of the Museum carefully developed a Collections Management Policy and review it every few years. One of the most important parts of the policy is the “Scope of Collections” section. Having a scope helps us recognize whether a potential gift makes sense as part of this museum’s collection or should perhaps be referred to another museum with a different mission. The Museum’s Collections Advisory Committee carefully considers every potential addition to the collection and makes a recommendation to the President and CEO of the organization, and the Vice President and Chief Curator, who have the authority to add items to the collection.

Residence and Office of James L. Smith, Mansfield, Cattaraugus Co NY

Graphite pencil on paper, framed

Artist Unidentified, ca. 1880

Gift of Scott and Gladys Macdonough, N0010.2010

Photograph: Richard Walker

Residence of Michael Van Alstine

Graphite pencil on paper

Fritz G. Vogt, 1890

The Farmers’ Museum, Museum Purchase, F0216.1944

Recently, a Connecticut couple offered to give the Museum a pencil sketch of a home in Cattaraugus County. This image falls within the Museum’s collecting interest in American folk art and it also provides evidence of upstate New York material culture, another of our collecting areas. Although we don’t know who sketched the James L. Smith residence and office, the style is reminiscent of the lithographs that appear in Victorian county atlases and histories, many of which can be found in our Research Library. In addition, the Smith sketch complements the drawings of itinerant Mohawk Valley artist Fritz G. Vogt in the collections of the Fenimore Art Museum and our sister institution, The Farmers’ Museum. So in this instance, the sketch of James Smith’s home and office is a welcome addition to the Museum’s collections for a variety of reasons.

From Farmland to Mature Forest: The Changing Landscape of Crumhorn Mountain

Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

While working on a recent blog ("See It Now in 3-D! Hi-tech imagery of the 1880s"), I came across another stereograph made by Cooperstown photographer Washington Smith that caught my eye because I had recently been at the same location—Crumhorn Mountain in the Town of Maryland, New York, about 15 miles south of Cooperstown.

Lake on Crumhorn Mountain

Stereographic print on cardboard

Washington G. Smith, mid-late 19th century

NM-48.69(14)

Smith’s caption added that Crumhorn Mountain was 2000 feet above sea level and someone else penciled in “Highest water in the state.” I don’t know whether that’s true, but today Crumhorn Mountain is home to Boy Scout Camp Henderson. My son’s troop spent a week there in July. According to the camp’s website, Henderson “is situated on 630 acres of rolling hills and mature forest on Crumhorn Mountain in upstate New York. Its’ reservation is home to a superb lake and miles of hiking trails that meet all ability levels.”

Lake on Crumhorn Mountain

Digital photograph

Douglas Kendall, July 15, 2010

As the description suggests, the area is heavily forested today. Entering “Crumhorn Lake, NY” into a Google Maps search and viewing the satellite image confirms that the trees come nearly to the water’s edge all around Crumhorn Mountain’s lake.

But look at Smith’s stereograph of the lake. Although there are trees around the far side of the lake, the entire foreground (apparently including about half the lake shore) is devoid of trees. Instead, the landscape is one of cleared fields with barns near the lakeshore.

Even 2000 feet above sea level, the scene recorded by Smith was typical of the landscape of upstate New York and New England in the mid to late 19th century. Land was relentlessly cleared for agriculture and mining throughout the region. By the end of the 19th century, many farmers had moved further west where the land was flatter and farms were larger. Marginal farmland, such as that atop Crumhorn Mountain, began to give way once again to forest—so much so that today the area appears to be a “mature forest” inhabited mainly by deer, small animals and the occasional bear, except for 6 weeks every summer (and other occasions throughout the year) when Camp Henderson is home to Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts from central New York and beyond. I doubt many of them suspect that their campsites were cleared farmland 150 years ago…but Wash Smith has left us the proof.

See It Now in 3-D! Hi-tech imagery of the 1880s.

Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

If you’ve been to the movies lately, you know that “3-D” is back in a big way. More and more movies must be viewed using plastic glasses provided by the theatre in return for a premium ticket price. I recently saw Despicable Me which was shown using “Real D 3D” TM technology. The movie was amusing, though I’m not convinced the illusion of three dimensions added much to it.

Of course, this isn’t the first wave of “3-D” image technology. 3-D goes way back—much further than Bwana Devil (1952) starring Robert Stack, considered the first color, American 3-D movie. As early as the 1860s, photographers were capturing images that could be viewed as if they were 3-dimensional. The last half of the 19th century was the first golden age of stereoscopic still images, usually known as stereographs or stereopticons.

It is necessary to take two photographs for a stereoscopic image. In the 19th century, photographers such as Cooperstown’s Washington G. Smith did this with two cameras or with one camera moved quickly to two positions.

In the Cooperstown area, Smith and his rival A. A. Cooley provided tourists with 3-D mementoes of their holidays on Otsego Lake. Cooley took this image of Kingfisher Tower, Edward Clark’s “folly” on the eastern shore of the lake, shortly after it was built in 1876. Smith recorded the journeys of the steamboat Natty Bumppo up and down the waters of the Glimmerglass.

Point Judith with Kingfisher Tower
Stereographic print on cardboard.
A. A. Cooley, Cooperstown, after 1876.
N0003.1995(PH46703)

Then again, stereoscopy also lent itself well to images of extraordinary events, such as “Professor Maillefert’s Sub-Marine Exhibition,” photographed by Smith in August 1871. Benjamin Maillefert, a Spanish-born engineer, pioneered methods of underwater blasting that helped make New York’s Hell Gate safe for shipping. Evidently he also travelled the country to demonstrate his methods. His performance on Otsego Lake was “witnessed by a large number of highly interested spectators” according to S. M. Shaw’s Chronicles of Cooperstown. Wash Smith undoubtedly believed that those spectators—as well as those who didn’t see the explosions first-hand—would want a 3-dimensional record of the event.

Professor Maillefert’s Sub-Marine Exhibition
Stereographic print on cardboard.
Washington G. Smith, 1871.
N1289.1946

Stereoscopy has faded in and out of popularity in the years since these images were created. With the reboot of cinematic 3-D and the advent of 3-D televisions and digital cameras, perhaps we are seeing its latest boom—will 3-D last this time?

Steamboat Landing-Rose Lawn
Stereographic print on cardboard.
Washington G. Smith, 1872-1898.
F0147.1959(38)

Drawing Attention: Birds-eye Views of Upstate New York

By Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

Bird's-eye views of burgeoning American cities and towns became a popular promotional tool for town development and an expression of local pride during the mid-19th century. Lithography made it possible for local boosters—and printers—to quickly and inexpensively disseminate views intended to impress citizens, prospective citizens and others with the prosperity and beauty of nearly every town and city.

Upstate New York towns had begun vying for influence from the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. Some places, such as Rochester and Oswego, became major shipping and milling centers because of their locations on canals, lakes, and—later—railroads. Others, such as Cooperstown, lacked a place on the major transportation routes; the lithographers still managed to sell images of these towns and villages to local residents and tourists.

Bird’s-eye views emphasize the most widely known advantages of each locale. By the mid-19th century, Cooperstown had been bypassed by canals and railroads. The village was best known as the home of the novelist James Fenimore Cooper.

A Civil War era image of Cooperstown depicts a quaint village hugging the picturesque Otsego Lake, renowned as the “Glimmerglass” in Cooper’s works. The settled village is seen beyond from a partially forested hillside with a hardy farmer plowing a steeply-sloped field, echoing the transition from frontier to settled farmland found in Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Points of interest are noted along the lower margin of the image; many of these refer to James Fenimore Cooper and his novels.

Cooperstown, New York
Lithograph on paper, 1862. M. Dev. Martin, artist and lithographer.
Lewis & Goodwin, Albany, NY, publishers.

Gift of Mrs. Morgan Henry.
N0040.1964

In contrast, Oswego was an important port on Lake Ontario. Flour, grain, lumber, iron, salt, and cornstarch passed through the port between the lake and the Oswego Canal, which linked the city with the Erie Canal in 1829. By 1853, the Oswego and Syracuse Railroad had provided another transportation link from the port to the interior. Bradley sketched Oswego from a vantage point off shore, a position which allowed him to emphasize the importance of the city’s harbor. Sailing vessels are congregated inside the breakwater. Steamboats, grain elevators, the lighthouse and the canal entrance beyond the first bridge all testify to the bustling business of Oswego. On the left, Fort Ontario looms over the lake front, recalling the former strategic importance of the location.

Oswego, N.Y.
Lithograph on paper, 1853. Lewis Bradley, artist. David William Moody, lithographer.

N0345.1955. Gift of Stephen C. Clark.

Of all canal boom towns, Rochester experienced the most explosive growth, from a population of 331 in 1815 to nearly 10,000 in 1830. One of the most celebrated engineering feats of the Erie Canal, the crossing of the Genesee River on an impressive stone aqueduct, can be seen in this view slightly to the right of center. Although railroad trains can be seen on the left in this view, the canal takes center stage. In addition to the prominent canal and the main thoroughfare visible at center, Hill chose a vantage point that allowed him to show in some detail many of the city's fine Italianate residences. Many industrial buildings along the canal and the river testify to Rochester’s economic vitality in the middle of the 19th century.

Rochester from the West, 1853

Lithograph on paper, 1853. John William Hill (1812-1879), artist. David William Moody, lithographer. Smith Brothers and Company, New York, NY, publisher.

N0348.1955. Gift of Stephen C. Clark.

A Statue with a Split Personality

By Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

Every museum collection has its mystery objects: artifacts whose purpose or provenance is not recorded. This is the story of a work of art that probably seemed quite straightforward when it was acquired, yet may not be exactly what it appears to be.

As readers may recall, I discussed the popularity of Last of the Mohicans merchandise in the 19^th century in a previous post. Today’s subject is another object associated with James Fenimore Cooper’s most famous novel: a bronzed figure of a Native American holding a bow, wearing a loin cloth, headdress and beads. The figure stands alert, looking intently to his left, a club and a quiver of arrows at his feet. On one end of the sculpture’s base is a label cast in Gothic letters: “The last of the Mohicans.”

Last of the Mohicans, or, Caupolican. Zinc, bronzed. Reduction after the original by Nicanor Plaza, 1844-1918, Paris, France, 1890-1910. Gift of Harry St. Clair Zogbaum, N0643.1943

So when I received a call from Donald Fennimore, Curator Emeritus at the Winterthur Museum asking to see our Last of the Mohicans statue , I had to search the database and the storage facility carefully before I found it. I studied with Don at the University of Delaware many years ago and gladly made an appointment for him to view the sculpture, but I did some digging on my own to discover why this object might be of interest.

There were a few clues in the catalog and on the object itself. The artist was listed simply as “N. Plaza;” I soon discovered that this was Nicanor Plaza (1844-1918), a Chilean sculptor who studied and worked in Italy and France and has been revered as a pioneer in Chilean art. This seemed a bit odd, as the Museum concentrates on art and artists of the United States.

Translating some sites that discussed Plaza’s career using Google’s Translate (which can give you the general meaning while stumbling over idiom and colloquial phrases), I came across a photo of the same figure—only this one is life-size and overlooks the Chilean capitol, Santiago. And it’s titled Caupolicán, not Last of the Mohicans. I’d found the source of a controversy over Plaza’s work and the reason for Don’s interest in the sculpture. Caupolicán was a leader of the Mapuche resistance to the Spanish conquest in the 1550s. Although he was ultimately captured and executed by the Spanish, he remains a hero to Chileans of indigenous ancestry, so the statue—installed in 1910—is a symbol of national pride.

Caupolican, as installed, Santiago, Chile. Bronze. Nicanor Plaza, 1844-1918. Santiago, Chile.

There’s some evidence that Plaza had entered the figure in a competition to memorialize Fenimore Cooper. After he failed to win that commission, he received a request for a figure of Caupolicán. Rather than waste the work he had put into the American competition, Plaza “re-purposed” the statue for his homeland. Or so the speculation goes. Over the years, Chileans have sometimes raised the question of why “Caupolicán” appears in non-Mapuche garb.

Don Fennimore is attempting to determine the specifics of the competition for which Plaza is said to have created the figure.

There is perhaps more than a bit of irony in the creation by a Chilean of Spanish ancestry working in Europe of a statue that has been identified as both a North American Mohican and a South American Mapuche. It will be interesting to see whether Don can establish the origin of Plaza’s project.

What Lies Below the Surface? Part III

By Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

When great landscape painters of 19^th-century America are discussed, one will certainly hear the names of Thomas Cole and Asher Durand, both of whom are represented in the collections of the Fenimore Art Museum. Frederic Church, George Inness, Thomas Doughty and Albert Bierstadt would probably make the list as well.

These painters not only created a popular vision of the American landscape, they also inspired countless Americans to take up pencil and sketchbook, palette and canvas, and record the scenery of their own regions. Though neither famous nor in most cases professional, many of these artists did possess some artistic skill and talent.

In western New York, William Martin Beauchamp (1830-1925) and John Calvin Perry (1837-1894) were two such artists. Beauchamp’s father was an English printer who emigrated to Skaneateles and ran local newspapers and a printing office. William sketched landscapes of the Skaneateles Lake area from an early age; he became an Episcopal priest and an amateur archaeologist and continued creating sketches and watercolors throughout his life as an avocation.

Glenhaven, Head of Skaneateles Lake, 1851. By William Martin Beauchamp. Oil on canvas.

Bequest of Nina Fletcher Little, N0183.1993.

John Calvin Perry lived his entire life in the hamlet of Delphi Falls, 30 miles or so from Skaneateles. He painted portraits, but also farmed to support his family. At times he taught art at the Cazenovia Seminary and in other nearby communities. He painted landscapes for his own pleasure and many of these remained with his descendants.

Wheat Harvest, date unknown. By John Calvin Perry. Oil on canvas.

Gift of Clayton Smith, N0121.1992. Photo: Lesley Poling.

Artists like Beauchamp and Perry could not earn their living as artists, but they are representative of an artistic culture that developed in 19^th-century New York. Their works, which never became iconic representations of the American landscape as did those of Cole and Church, nevertheless have great historical value in documenting the common landscape of upstate New York.